It did get worse -- and now it's over

The saddest news first. We were left with no choice but to call animal control. Wraith would not let us near the kittens, and we could not leave the little ginger one with an untreated broken leg. I would have been clawed from elbow to wrist, if I hadn't been wearing a long-sleeved sweater and rose gauntlets. We sent them, cage and all, last Friday, then picked up the humane trap to capture the other two. We set it yesterday, and by the evening, both had been picked up.

Waiting for animal control was incredibly stressful for all concerned, but afterward we both felt a great sense of relief and of peace. I had to steel myself to set the trap; it felt like such a terrible betrayal to set it to lure a hungry kitten, but as sad as we feel, and as much as we wish that it could have been otherwise, we feel no guilt. There was nothing else we could do.

Now that it's over, I can talk about it and why there was no other option, given the situation. As I noted in my previous posts, every animal rescue agency in Baton Rouge requires that cats listed for adoption be socialized as indoor animals. The only other options are Trap-Neuter-Release or animal control. I've already explained why TNR was not an option in this case.

We were absolutely right in our initial feeling that it is not possible to socialize four feral kittens and a half-wild mother in our little suburban tract home. As so many websites advised, the only way to socialize them would have been to separate all five of them, and how were we to do that? Wraith had already taught her kittens to fear us; she never stopped hissing at me every time I stepped out the door, even though I was providing food. In the house, she was becoming increasingly aggressive, growling at us when we came to feed her. Isolating them from her and each other was absolutely necessary and we had no way to do that.

We also needed to completely isolate them from our cats. After they'd been in the house for 12 hours or so, Miller refused to walk past the cage. I had to carry him down the hall to the kitchen for his dinner, and then back to the bedroom. Buddy was more curious, but Wraith hissed at him -- and he hissed back -- whenever he would stop to look at them.

If we lived in the country or a rural area with a couple of acres and distant neighbors, then TNR would have been ideal. They could have continued to live as feral animals, or we could have spent the months required to earn their trust, sitting out there with them, tempting them with bits of treats. They never would have become socialized to a house, but could have become our pets. But we do not live in the country.

We discussed moving them to the backyard, but how were we to do that and how were we to keep them there? And if we were successful in it, it would mean that we would have five additional cats living in the backyard for the next 15 years. The neighbors were sure to call animal control.

Why did we even think it was possible? Because neither of us had any experience with feral kittens. They are fiercer and more aggressive than either of us had imagined, and they were terrified of us. They climbed the cage walls, and when cornered, scratch and bit. Mike's finger will be a long time healing. We might have managed with one, but no one was stepping up to take any of the other three -- and what were we to do with Wraith?

Poor Wraith. Life had not been kind to her. Was she really a desperate, feral mother cat? Was she an abused domestic cat? Was she an outdoor cat who was never truly socialized? Was she ill? Mike always said that she looked "half-mad." She was a devoted mother who was doing her best for her kittens. Whatever terrors life held for her are over now, and she passed out of life peacefully at the end. She wasn't savaged by a dog or coyote or hit by a car to die slowly in the street or ravaged by illness. I'm sure that she was distraught in animal control, separated from her kittens, but as the drugs took effect, she would have calmly slipped into a deep sleep in her last moments.

I do mourn for her and for the kittens, and wish that it could have been otherwise, but I know that we thoroughly explored every option. We were ready to care for them and to love them, but they would not allow us to. They had no experience of it and did not understand.

As with their mother, I try to comfort myself with the knowledge that the kittens had a peaceful and clean death. They were not killed or maimed by the fan blades of my car, or run over in our driveway, or savaged by that hideous dog next door or killed by a feral tom cat (of which there are many in this area) or by a coyote. They didn't starve or suffer from disease.

And if we are honest, that was the future they all faced as roaming feral cats. TNR does nothing to change that reality.

It is not what we wanted. It is not what we would have chosen, if we had a choice. But we did not. I reserve my anger for the people in Baton Rouge who refuse to sterilize their pets. It is they who put us in this untenable position.

To anyone thinking of attempting something like this, our advice is don't. Not unless you have the kind of space necessary to isolate them. Believe the many, many websites that tell you how difficult it will be. And use humane traps to capture them.